Modern flight deck displays for vehicles (such as aircraft or spacecraft) display a considerable amount of information, such as vehicle position, speed, altitude, attitude, navigation, target, and terrain information. In the case of an aircraft, most modern displays additionally display a flight plan from different views, either a lateral view, a vertical view, or a perspective view, which can be displayed individually or simultaneously on the same display.
The lateral view, generally known as a lateral map display, is basically a top-view of the flight plan, and may include, for example, a top-view aircraft symbol, waypoint symbols, line segments that interconnect the waypoint symbols, and range rings. The lateral map may also include various map features including, for example, weather information, terrain information, political boundaries, and navigation aids. The terrain information may include situational awareness (SA) terrain, as well as terrain cautions and warnings which, among other things, may indicate terrain that may impact the aircraft. The perspective view provides a three-dimensional view of the vehicle flight plan and may include one or more of the above-mentioned features that are displayed on the lateral map, including the terrain information.
Some modern flight deck display systems incorporate a synthetic terrain display, which generally represents a virtual or computer simulated view of terrain rendered in a conformal manner. Under certain flight conditions, all of the synthetic terrain display might be filled with rendered terrain, rendered sky, or rendered water. Under such conditions, the entire synthetic terrain display could be rendered in the same color or using a limited color palette, e.g., a bluish palette for the sky and/or water, or a brownish palette or a greenish palette for land. Consequently, it can be difficult to recognize or resolve the aircraft attitude quickly and easily when most (or all) of the synthetic terrain display is rendered using a single color palette.